City started well and took the game to Arsenal, but the home side responded and looked more likely to score at 1-1.

Midfield scrap

This match was played at an extremely quick tempo, especially in the centre of midfield. It wasn’t a dirty game, and these aren’t aggressive sides – but there were a surprisingly high number of mistimed tackles in the centre of the pitch, and four bookings before half-time.

There wasn’t actually much creativity coming from the midfield zone, however. Yaya Toure had one of his weaker matches for City, with Fernandinho starting off cautiously but becoming more of an attacking force later in the game, when others had tired. For Arsenal, the use of Mathieu Flamini and Mikel Arteta together is clearly Arsenal’s most defensive combination, and while Flamini got himself into the box frequently – eventually scoring the equaliser – City could sit deep and stay compact rather than feeling the need to press high up the pitch.

Creativity?

So where were the flashes of imagination coming from? Well, not upfront – where neither Olivier Giroud nor Edin Dzeko contributed much in isolated lone striker roles. Giroud can be effective with his back to goal, but he needs to be high up the pitch and have midfield runners getting in advance of him – when Arsenal are camped deep inside their own half, with the midfielders helping provide a shield for the defence, he’s not particularly good at holding up the ball. Vincent Kompany and Martin Demichelis pushed up, but were rarely spun.

Dzeko came towards the ball more – but again, there generally wasn’t anyone (ie Sergio Aguero) running in behind to stretch Arsenal in the other direction.

Lopsided

The game was shaped by the lopsided nature of the sides. Both had an imbalance caused by the use of a drifter (Samir Nasri and Tomas Rosicky) down the same side, and a more direct player (Lukas Podolski and Jesus Navas) on the opposite wing. The former pair helped with build-up play, the latter pair contributed to the penetration.

City were the first to offer an attacking threat, partly because they were retaining the ball better in midfield. David Silva helped to make City’s attackers flow down the right – he drifted laterally from his number ten position and thrived in a pocket of space created by the fact Kieran Gibbs was being dragged towards the touchline by Navas. Silva played a couple of great passes from that position, including a clever through-ball to find Navas breaking in behind the defence, and (in a slightly different situation) the ball to Dzeko which saw the Bosnian hit the post – Silva turned in the rebound.

Podolski

Also a key factor, however, was Podolski playing a very attacking role on the left. The alternative way of putting this, of course, is that he wasn’t defending very well against Pablo Zabaleta. The Argentine right-back broke past the Arsenal defence in the opening couple of minutes, deciding to pull the ball back rather than shoot – and he continually motored forward throughout the game, Podolski not having the discipline to stick with him.

Podolski at least offered an attacking threat, and in a rare moment of Arsenal attacking in the first half, produced a fine cross towards Giroud which forced Martin Demichelis to clear.

Second half

The pattern continued into the second half, and Arsenal continued to suffer in their left-back zone. Navas beat Gibbs and hit a low cross into the box, which trickled wide via Per Mertesacker – the closest City came to extending their lead.

To justify leaving Gibbs so exposed, Podolski had to produce some more attacking magic. And, to be fair, he did. He provided the cross for Flamini’s equaliser, started to push back Zabaleta and therefore created room for Gibbs just behind – the left-back swung in a couple of dangerous crosses in the final half hour. Podolski also had the best chance at 1-1, forcing Joe Hart to save with his feet after a loose ball broke towards him.

Such was Arsenal’s dominance down that flank, Pellegrini was forced to become more defensive. James Milner was introduced as Navas’ replacement and sat deeper, protecting Zabaleta. Arsenal now created little down that side, and Podolski was (as usual) substituted before the end, with Oxlade-Chamberlain on in his place, playing on the right flank with Rosicky switching flanks.

Just afterwards, a defensive substitution (Javi Garcia for Samir Nasri) meant Milner switched sides, and defended down the opposite flank, where Arsenal now had their most direct threat, Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Conclusion

The shape of the game was crucial in creating many of the game’s best opportunities – everything came down the Gibbs-Podolski v Zabaleta-Navas flank.

The most interesting thing was how the managers responded to this, though. Wenger didn’t respond – he must have been aware his side were suffering in the left-back zone, but trusted the attacking capabilities of Podolski to justify his adventurousness, which eventually paid off.

Pellegrini, on the other hand, was more pragmatic – turning to Milner once he realised City were suffering down that flank. He made City more secure, but offered less going forward than Navas. It sums up the different style of the coaches. Overall, a point was fair.

4 Responses to “ Arsenal 1-1 Manchester City: all the attacking down the same flank ”

dearieme on April 1, 2014 at 6:07 pm

Lovely player that Silva. He’d have made a super scrum-half or fly-half in the days before rugby was played only by the heavily muscled.

gaze on April 2, 2014 at 1:20 pm

Hi ZM, thanks for the review as usual
I would like to know if, with the World Cup coming, you plan to make review of past world cup great teams tactics. It would be interesting IMHO; for example I would like to know how you can analyse Brazil’82 team, or the 3-5-2 trend in 1990 WC, etc.

Locost on April 3, 2014 at 1:14 am

Brazil ‘82 was the product of serendipity. The need to squeeze 4 great central midfielders (2 defensive-ish and 2 attacking)in the shape of Zico, Socrates, Falcao and Cerezo into the same side. Hence 4-2-2-2. It would have lacked width if it were not for the fact that Brazil has a history of producing excellent attacking fullbacks and this time could rely on Junior and Leandro. Eder had started life as a left winger too, so felt really happy drifting wide and Zico was equally happy to drift out to the right to find space on the other flank. At times it resembled 4-2-3-1 although nobody called it that. Naturally Serginho up front was the weak link but Careca was injured.

3-5-2 had its origins in the build up to the World Cup in 1986 after the European Championships of 1984. Denmark and Yugoslavia in particular had realised that if most sides insisted on playing a variant of 4-4-2, then only 2 markers and a sweeper were needed at the back, the fullbacks could then become what Sepp Piontek called “wingbacks” to provide width and you could still outnumber your opponent in central midfield with three arranged in a triangle. Once Bilardo’s Argentina won in Mexico using exactly the same tactic, the idea became universal. Everyone went “shape for shape” to cancel each other out. Even England and Brazil used the tactic at Italia ‘90, which became one of the the most tactically boring World Cups in history as a result.

The changes in the offside law that made sweepers a fairly risky proposition coupled with the re-emergence of the winger in either a French inspired 4-2-3-1 or the Cryuff inspired and uber Dutch 3/4/3 cum 4-3-3 formation between 1996 and 2002 killed off the tactic. Now 3 defenders were marking one forward, you were outnumbered on the flanks and you’d lost your numerical advantage through the middle. Van Gaal’s great Ajax side of the mid-1990s were ideally set up to exploit 3-5-2’s failings and ran amok as a result.

Locost on April 3, 2014 at 1:20 am

Oh one more thing Van Gaal’s 3-4-3 died in 1996 after Juventus in the European Cup final and then England at Euro 1996 showed that it just could not handle 4-3-3.

That was effectively the beginning of the end for the 3 man back line.